Derrick Rose’s Day Off

Rose goes AWOL with little to no accountability for neither the point guard nor Jackson

Photo: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke

January 9th was another sad day in Knicks history:

Pablo Prigioni, a crowd favorite during his rookie year and announced his retirement.

Chasson Randle, a Westchester Knicks D-League player who fans were hoping would sign a contract with the NBA’s New York Knicks, signed a 10-day contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans dropped 40 points and 18 rebounds in 29 minutes. He had 22 and 10 by halftime.

When it rains, it pours. Usually, teams stand the rain together, but that night Rose was nowhere to be found. Reportedly, it was business as usual until later in the day. Rose had been to the shoot-around earlier, but left a bit later to fly to Chicago to attend to a “family issue.”

That isn’t a confusing matter. Family has been prioritized before work in nearly every workplace. And, since there’s only one Derrick Rose, there’s not a lot of readily available replacements to threaten Rose with dismissal for tending to a personal matter that may be grave in nature. Sometimes, the job has to wait.

Mostly, everyone is in agreement of this. The only obvious opponents are probably the same chuckleheads who chastised the New York Giants players for being on a boat with Trey Songz during time off.

However, where the bulk of critics find fault is in Rose’s lack of communication. Initially listed as the starter for January 9th’s home game against the New Orleans Pelicans, the starting point guard was nowhere to be found, much like the Knicks defense on pick and rolls this season.

Photo: Tom Zweibel

The mutterings started shortly after. Rumors of Rose being livid at his benching during the Milwaukee game gained a little traction and cryptic tweets about trade rumors began sprouting like weeds. Obviously, all of this speculation turned out to be wrong and laughable. Hindsight bias enables the viewer to dismiss erroneous myths after the situation passed, but in that moment, with Rose gone and no answers, anything was possible.

Since the Knicks function like a spin off of Days of Our Lives even Adrian Wojnarowski, famous for his exclusive insider knowledge, had no idea where Rose was or what he was doing.

The New York Knickerbockers front office had nothing as well.

The best they could come up with were Jeff Hornacek post-game comments comparable in value to a shoulder shrug. Knicks center and expensive mannequin Joakim Noah offered the most information on Rose by offering a simple, “He’s okay.” Which is good, but was arguably insufficient. Management from the top down didn’t know much, so, this embarrassing lack of accountability and responsibility wasn’t just a bump in the road, it was another crash on the Knicks long, ass backwards ride back to the bottom of the eastern conference. The Knicks have lost eight of nine, and the Zen Master has had nothing to say, even last night with Rose’s absence.

Maybe he’s speechless.

Actions may speak louder than words and with Rose being fined and scheduled to start the next game against the 76ers, Phil Jackson’s isn’t talking about much. It can be argued with a backsliding team like this he doesn’t have much of a choice. The mini basketball hoop at the dentist’s office has better interior defense than the Knicks this season and the offense is ugly and pedestrian. So, sacrificing the respect of the organization for a bit of selfish offense on Wednesday doesn’t sound like a hefty price for a team and organization that has been the laughing stock of the NBA on-and-off for years.

Derrick Rose had a private, personal, family issue to tend to on Monday, but carelessly refused to disclose his whereabouts when he could have simply sent a text while en route. Then, Jackson shrugged.